The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-27

SJNetHlS UP btle Souf with dry sand, the re
hgion of Renan is the romance of believing
nothlng the religion of Thomas Carlyle is
only condensed London fog; the religion
OF the Huxleys and the Spencers is merely a
pedestal ON which human philosophy sits
shlyellng in the night of the soul, looking
up to. the stars, offering no help to the ma
Ilons that crouch and groan at the base.
Tell me where there is one man who has re-
1ected that Gospel for another, who is
thoroughly satisfied, and helped, and con-
tented In his skepticism, and | will take the
car tomorrow and ride 500 miles to see him.
The full power of the Gospel has not yet
been touched. As sportsman throws up
his hand and catches the ball flying through
the air, just SO easily will this Gospel
after a while catch this round world flying
from It's orbit and bring it back to
the heart of Christ. Give it full swing, and
II Will pardon every sin, heal every wound,
cure every trouble, emancipate every slave
and ransom every nation Ye Christian
men and women who go out this afternoon
70 do Christian work as you go into the
Sabbath schools, and the lay preaching sta
lions and the penitentiares, and the asy-
lums, want you TO feel that you bear in
your hand a weapon, compared with which
the lightning has no speed, and avalanches
have no heft, and the thunderbolts of
heaven have no power: it is the arrow of
the omnipotent Gospel. Take careful aim.
Pull the arrow clean back until the head
strikes the bow. Then let it fly And may
the slain of the Lord be many.
Again: If you want to be slSillful in spir-
itual hunting, you must hunt in unfre-
quented and secluded places Why does the
hunter go three or four days in the Penn
sylvania forests, or, over Raquette Lake,
into the wilds of the Adirondack 1t is the
pplv xyaxy to 10 'bo Jaat. el,x nd
"bangn of the gun clears the forest From
the California stage you see, as you go over
the plains, here and there a cayote trotting
along almost within range of the gun
sometimes quite within range of it, No
one cares for that; it is worthless The
good game is hidden and secluded Every
hunter knows that. So, many of the
souls that will be of most worth
for Christ, and of most value to
the church, are secluded. They do not
come in your way. You will have to go
where they are. Yonder they are down in
that cellar; yonder they are up in that gar
ret; far away from the door of any church.
The Gospel arrow has not been pointed at
them. The tract distributor and the city
missionary sometimes just catch a glimpse
Of them, as hunter through the trees gets
a momentary sight of partridge or roe
buck. The trouble is, we are waiting for
the game to come to us. We are not good
hunters. We are standing in Schermerhorn
street, expecting that the timid antelope
will come up and eat out of our hand. We
are expecting that the prairie-fowl will light
on our church steeple II is not their habit.
If the church should wait ten millions of
years for the world to come in and be saved
it will wait in vain. The world will not
come. What the church wants now is 10
lift their feet from damask ottomans and
put them in the stirrups We want
pulpit on wheels. The Church wants not
so much cushions as it wants saddle-bags
and arrows. We have got TO put aside the
gown and the kid gloves, and put on the
hunting-shirt. We have been fishing so
long in the brooks that run under the
shadow of the Church that the fish know us,
and they avoid the hook, and escape as soon
as we come to the bank, while yonder is
Upper Saranac and Big Tupper's Lake,
where the first swing Of the Gospel net
would break it for the multitude of the
fishes. There is outside work to be done.
What is that | see in the backwoodsg 1t is
tent The hunters have made clearing
and camped out What do they care il
they have wet feet or if they have nothing
but pine branch for a pillow, or for the
northeast storm! Ii moose in the dark
ness steps into the lake to drink they hear it
TlRDU away. IL IL lOOU CRY III bIB Illu-
night. they hear it. So in the
service of God we have exposed work. We
have got TO camp out and rough it, We
are putting all our care on the seventy
thousand people of Brooklyn, who, they say,
come to church What are we doing for
the seven hundred thousand that do not
comet Have they no soulsl Are they sin
less that they need no pardonl Are there
no dead in their houses that they need no
comfortl Are they cut off from God, to go
into eternity-no wing to bear them, no
light to cheer them, no welcome TO greet
them? ! hear to day surging up from the
lower depths of Brooklyn a groan that
comes through our Christian assemblages
and through our Christian churches; and it
blots out all this scene from my eyes to-
day, as by the mists of a great Niagara, for
the dash and the plunge of these great tor
rents of life dropping down into the fathom-
less and laundering abyss of suffering and
woe. | sometimes think that just as God
blotted out the Church Of Thyatira and
Corinth and Laodicea, because of their sloth
and stolidity, he will blot out American
and English Christianity, and raise on the
ruins stalwart, wide-awke,' missionary
church, that can take the full meaning of
that command: $50 into all the world, and
preach the Gospel TO every creature. He
that beleveth and is baptized shall be saved,
and he that believeth not shall be damned.
| remark, further, If you want to succeed
in Gospel hunting you must have courage.
If the hunter stand with trembling hand or
shoulder that fiinches with fear, instead OF
his taking the catamount, the catamount
takes him. What would become Of the
Greenlander IL, when out hunting for the
bear, he should stand shivering with terror
on an icebergl What would have become
of Du Chaillu and Livingstone in the Afri-
can thicket, with a faint heart and a weak
knee2 When panther comes within TWEEN
ty PAGES Of you, and it has its eye on you,
and il has squatted for the fearful spring,
''steady there"
Courage, o ye spiritual hunters! There
are great monsters of iniquity prowling all
around about the community. Shall we not
in the strength of God go forth and combat
theml We not only need more heart, but
more backbone. What is the Church Of
God that it should fear 10 look in the eye
any transgrassioni There is the Bengal
tiger of drunkenness that prowls around,
and instead of attacking it, how many of us
hide under the church pew or the com
munon tablet There is so much invested in
il we are afraid 10 assault IL millions of dol
lars in barrels, i'm watts, in spigots, in cork
screws, in gin palaces with marble
floors and Italian-top tables and
chased ice coolers, and in the strych-
nine. and the logwood, and the tartaric acid,
and the nux vomica, that go 70 make up our
pure American drinks. looked with
wondering eyes on the Heidelberg tun,"
II is the great liquor vat Of Germany, which
Is said to hold eight hundred hogsheads OF
wine, and only three times in hundred
years has il been filed. But, as | stood and
"a 4 10 fe